Pre-season at Southport & Birkdale has been derailed – but stand-in skipper David Snellgrove hopes his young side are still on the right track.

Comp veteran Snellgrove, a multiple title winner with Firwood Bootle and captain of England’s victorious Over-50s World Cup side last year, is the safest of safe hands after Chris Cunningham was forced out by illness.

And he hopes with another year’s experience under their belts, S&B can continue to inch up the Premier Division table.

The Trafalgar Road side escaped relegation on the last day under Chris Firth in 2019, then repeated the feat post-Covid in 2021 under Cunningham.

An eighth-place finish in 2022 was more comfortable, but artificially inflated by the off-field penalties given to Newton-le-Willows and Birkenhead Park.

So last year’s seventh place, with the added bonus of a Lancashire Cup berth, represented real progress.

Snellgrove said: “With the exception of Chris Firth and myself, it’s a big plus that everyone’s a year older.

“We’ve seen the benefits of the vast majority of the lads having come together three years ago and having started in the 1st XI then as very young lads. 

“One thing you can be sure of at that age is inconsistency. 

“However good they are, they’re not going to be consistent as 15-year-old lads. 

“But now they’ve got a number of 1st XI fixtures behind them and a fair bit of experience, and we’ve seen a growth in their maturity year after year. 

“I’m hoping that will have gone on even more this time.

“We just need to keep the side together and keep moving forward. We’ve just got to make sure we do our best individually and collectively. 

“There has been a bit of progression over the last few years and we have to keep building on that.”

Opening batter JJ Fielding has returned to his hometown club of Ramsbottom in the Lancashire League, and Indian prodigy Aryan Juyal is unable to return to repeat the fireworks of last summer – 737 runs in half a season at 122.83, including three consecutive centuries.

But the likes of England U19s wicketkeeper Jack Carney, batters Jack Stanley and Basil Sultan, brothers Corey and Rocky Flintoff and bowlers Harvey Walker and Tom Crew will all return, augmented by another overseas batter.

Snellgrove added: “Carney’s been away at the U19 World Cup, Stanley’s been in Melbourne and Tom in Sydney, so they’ll come back as more mature people as well as cricketers. 

“Basil, Harvey, Corey and Rocky are all a year older – they’re all hopefully more senior, experienced guys rather than youngsters you might get the odd performance out of. 

“They’re 1st XI cricketers, so hopefully they’ll be contributing so the workload and the burden is shared around.”

Toby Pettman, a seamer on Nottinghamshire’s books who turned out for S&B last summer, has left in part because of a change which may impact other clubs – 2nd XI Championship matches are now scheduled to finish on Fridays instead of Thursdays, meaning seamers in the county set-up might be ordered to rest on Saturdays.

But Snellgrove is content with his lot, even though his return to captaincy has come at a strange time.

“If it wasn’t for these circumstances, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be skippering again – I thought those days had gone,” he said. 

“But if it wasn’t for Cunny, I wouldn’t be at S&B, so I felt a bit of a duty to him and the club.

“The league does look very strong with the teams coming up well-equipped, and it’s going to be a very competitive league. 

“Ormskirk, Northern and Leigh look very strong at the top end – and after that, it’s going to be a battle.”